Thread: BASIC LIST / SUGGESTED ITEMS FOR LONG TERM SURVIVAL

Life in Argentina after the 2001 crisis.

Must see Video: Continuous Chest Compression CPR

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcbgpiKy ... r_embedded



Apr 27, 2010

Be a lifesaver; not a bystander. Learn Continuous Chest Compression CPR from Gordon A. Ewy, MD, and Karl Kern, MD, the physician researchers who developed this new approach to CPR.

Katadyn Hiker Water Filter - Customer Review

Thursday, July 7, 2011



During the month of July, we have a special Katadyn® Hiker and Blue Water Bottle Combo on sale for only $47.89 (Regular Price: $63.90). This is a savings of 25% off the regular price for this combo.

The Katadyn® Hiker is the best selling microfilter in the US Outdoor Market. Its unique filter prevents early clogging and its ergonomic handle makes it easy to pump up to one quart per minute. Compact and lightweight (only 11oz), the Katadyn Hiker is great for emergency kits, backpacking, and camping. The water filter's simple design makes it easy to use and it eliminates bacteria and protozoa (Giardia and Cryptosporidium). A carbon core reduces pesticides and chemicals, producing fresh tasting water.

Technical Specifications:
•Microfiltration Method: AntiClog Technology with 0.3 micron glassfiber and activated carbon granulate
•Output: Up to one quart per minute
•Cartridge Capacity: Up to 200 gallons, depending on water quality
•Weight: 11oz
•Height: 6.5"
•Hose Length: 36"

"The Katadyn® Hiker is an excellent, simple and lightweight filter ideal for small families or individual use. I use this filter with Katadyn® Micropur Tablets and have never had a problem with my drinking water, even when filtered from swamp water. It makes a great addition to emergency kits for short term use; it's also great on the trail. Note: Take care to ensure your water container is properly cleaned, disinfected and prepared to receive the filtered water. Follow the manufacturer's directions for cleaning and sanitizing after use and before storage." --Steve, WV

http://preparednesspantry.blogspot.c...-customer.html

How to Survive a Dust Storm

Wednesday, July 6, 2011



Monsoon season in the United States begins in late June to early July and affects most of the Desert Southwest. During monsoon season the weather can quickly change causing high winds, rain, floods, lightning, thunder, and dust storms.

The recent dust storm in Arizona serves as a great reminder of how quickly the weather can change and how many problems the weather can cause with travel, even during the summer. Whether or not you live in an area that has frequent dust storms, it's important to know what to do if you ever find yourself in the middle of one while traveling.

According to the Arizona Emergency Information Network, dust storms are unexpected, unpredictable and can sweep across desert landscapes at any time. Here are a few tips from the Arizona Emergency Information Network on what to do if you find yourself facing a dust storm.

If you are outside:
• Seek shelter immediately
• Cover your eyes, nose and mouth
• Stay low and cover up

If you are in a moving vehicle:
• Pull off the roadway or reduce speed
• Turn off car lights
• Set the emergency brake

It's important to have a car kit or some basic emergency supplies easily accessible in your car just in case you get stuck for an extended period of time on the side of the road. You may want to consider including water, food, and extra clothing to protect your skin from blowing sand.


http://preparednesspantry.blogspot.c...ust-storm.html

The DIY Survival Community: Is there a better way?

A popular topic on survival forums, blogs, and websites is the concept of the DIY survival community. Here’s the concept.

Every self-reliant group should have a doctor, a dentist, one or two former military personnel, an experienced gardener or farmer, maybe a teacher, and an assortment of others with strong practical skills, such as hunting. To form your own survival community, you should begin seeking out like-minded people who fit these specific slots and begin making plans for establishing an actual survival retreat as a group.

There are some downsides to this plan. First, with opsec always on the fore-front of the minds of most preppers and survival-types, how will you know exactly who is like-minded and also interested in joining with you? Instinct? And, do you really want to cast your family’s future into the hands of virtual strangers? A few conversations in a Meet-Up group can hardly establish the deep trust necessary for banding together in order to survive. Think about it. If this is your plan, you are placing your family’s security in the hands of people you may not know very well.

image by nick farmhill


Who’s to say everyone will be in agreement when it comes to making hard decisions? And what will happen when the doctor’s son and his family show up at the retreat after TSHT? Will the group be given a vote as to whether or not to accept these new arrivals or will the doctor, because of his or her importance to the community, be given a free pass when if a steady stream of their loved ones starts arriving? Just how long do you think the cohesiveness of the group will last if the majority votes to send away your parents?

The woman in this video presents this question in a thought-provoking manner.

Video: WROL Reality (Without Rule of Law) http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... hkn9qUN0XU



Jan 21, 2011

Question: If the power goes out and there is looting & rioting in the streets, how do you turn away your family & friends when they come to your door? You have only enough supplies for your own family. How do you handle that situation?

In a way, the idea of establishing survival communities along these lines is reminiscent of the efforts in the mid-19th century to create utopian societies, such as the Icarians. Eventually, the groups disbanded, sometimes after just a couple of years. Usually, this was due to disagreements about how money was handled, who was in charge, how decisions were made, etc. Wherever there are people, there will be conflict.

image by taberandrew


In theory, I really like the idea of the make-your-own survival community. On paper, it looks great. The reality, though, could be very, very different. Even establishing rules, procedures, and a chain of command early on won’t guarantee a survival paradise with everyone emerging on the other side of the S hitting the F, as a cohesive group with everyone safe and healthy.

Dr. Bruce Clayton, a well-known survival expert and author of eight books, has a different take on the DIY survival community. He claims these communities already exist. They already have a doctor, a dentist, farmers, food preservation experts, security experts, and teachers. This community is called a village. Dr. Clayton recommends doing some research and finding one of these villages in your preferred area, and then just…moving there.

Yes, you’ll be the outsider, but the essential pieces required for a self-reliant community are already in place. It will be up to you to establish yourself as an integral part of the community, but it will also save a lot of time. If your family members show up after TSHF, you have every right to bring them into your home without consulting The Leader or The Committee. In the meantime, you can begin growing your gardens, planting your fruit trees, and start prepping to your heart’s content.

What are your thoughts?

http://thesurvivalmom.com/2011/07/01...-a-better-way/

Corp Organic Food Brands Don't Want GMO Labels

Video: Organic Spies Find Lies http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCK0MTS4 ... e=youtu.be



May 31, 2011

Why The Organic Trade Association and Corporate Organic Food Brands do NOT want Labeling of Genetically Engineered and Genetically Modified Foods

This Video provides financial evidence that the President of the Board of Directors at the Organic Trade Association, Julia Sabin, individually profits off of Genetically engineered foods as a VP and General Manager at Smuckers.

GM Goats Neither Male Nor Female http://www.responsibletechnology.org/news/1501

15 Years Of GM Soy In Argentina A Disaster http://www.mo.be/en/article/15-years-gm ... -argentina

SA GM Crop Project Faces Ruin http://www.responsibletechnology.org/news/1509

Peru Bans GM Crops For 10 Years http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php?option ... e&id=13231

Sneak Attack on Supplements: FDA and Senator Durbin Use Slow News Day to Launch

Press Release
http://www.anh-usa.org
July 4, 2011

Today, both the FDA and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) dropped policy “bombs” on those of us who use dietary supplements. It is no mere coincidence that both were released on the Friday before a holiday weekend. By timing the introduction of their anti-supplement legislation and regulatory guidance this way, the FDA and Sen. Durbin are both hoping to evade negative publicity. We think it is better to keep American citizens fully informed, and with your help, we will get the word out. Please send this communication far and wide.

First, the FDA has issued draft guidance for complying with the New Dietary Ingredient (NDI) notification protocols contained in the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA). As you may recall, DSHEA said that supplements already on sale prior to the passage of the act were “grandfathered” in, and did not have to be reviewed by the FDA. New supplements developed after the Act have been in a kind of limbo waiting for the FDA to spell out the procedures to be followed.

These new supplements have always been at risk because of the uncertainly surrounding their regulatory status. And many of these new supplements are extremely important for our health. We won’t name them, because to do would be to put a bull’s-eye on them for the FDA to shoot at, but you would recognize many of them and may be currently taking them.

DSHEA was passed in 1994. The FDA has thus taken seventeen years to provide regulatory guidance for these new supplements. Now a draft version of guidance is here, and it isn’t good. It is just another effort by the FDA to suffocate the supplement industry so that everything—supplements and drugs alike—will go through the vastly expensive drug approval process, a process that pays for FDA salaries.

We have said it before and we will say it again. Supplements cannot usually be patented. No non-patentable substance can be taken through a drug approval process that on average costs a billion dollars. If supplements are treated like drugs, there simply won’t be any supplements. The FDA knows this perfectly well.

The new draft guidance is written in the usual regulatory non-English, but buried within it are definitions of “new supplements” that will make more and more supplements subject to the new rules. The rules themselves are designed to make it harder and harder to market new supplements, all of which will need to submit notification to an agency that is fundamentally hostile to the supplement industry. Not only does each supplement require its own notification, a separate notification must be submitted by each company that offers it. Additionally, notification must be submitted again if the supplement is reformulated in any way or offered in combination with any other supplement or ingredient. Based on what the FDA has done in the past, many more applications will be rejected than accepted and the cost of the whole process will be high.

The FDA is required to give us 90 days to comment on their proposed guidance. Our experts are busy analyzing the proposal in all its detail and we will report on it again and provide an Action Alert in our next newsletter right after the holiday. We already know this needs to be stopped. With your help we will do everything we can to change it. Your ability to use supplements not already documented as having been on the market under the same exact name and formulation prior to 1994 will depend on it.

As we mentioned above, Sen. Durbin’s much-feared Dietary Supplement Labeling Act of 2011 (S.1310) has been formally introduced in Congress. The language is not available online yet, but the draft procured by ANH-USA yesterday reaffirmed the analysis we sent you earlier this week. Look for our in-depth article and Action Alert on S.1310 in our newsletter on Tuesday, July 5th!

http://www.anh-usa.org/sneak-attack-...day-to-launch/

What Kind Of Seeds To Store?

July 11, 2011 by David Morris

New to gardening? Try growing tomatoes.

Lots of people email and ask about what the best seeds are to store for long-term survival situations. With all of the deceptive and fear-based seed marketing in the preparedness market, it’s become confusing to try to figure out what kind of seeds to plant now and store for the future.

Here’s an example of an email I get fairly regularly:

David,
Thanks for the info. Question: Dehydrated food lasts only so long. What is the best source for seeds, etc. to grow food? Online? Farmers’ markets? Country stores? –Bob

Here’s part of what I wrote back… plus some more:

Ideally, you want to have seeds from a few sources that are heirloom, hybrid, short season and long season, so that if any of the batches are bad, you won’t be wiped out. This will also protect you from early season hail storms, floods, late frosts and other environmental factors like volcanoes that might cause a short growing season.

Don’t confuse “hybrid” with GMO (genetically modified). Personally, I am a hybrid. I’m a mix of German, Russian, American Indian and French. Put another way, I’m a typical American mutt… and I like it.

Back to seeds… many hybrids occur naturally when the plants from one strain of seed pollinate the plants of another strain. Usually, hybrids occur in a controlled setting when scientists cross-pollinate plants. In any case, most hybrids are made to have more output or be more resilient to drought, flooding, heat, cold, disease and/or pests, but the trade-off is that most have seeds that won’t produce the following year.

GMO seeds are sold primarily to large farming operations, and you usually won’t need to worry about looking out for them when you buy seeds. Many seed companies advertise that their seeds are “NON-GMO” to a public that knows GMO is bad, but they don’t advertise that no other seeds in the store are GMO seeds. I won’t say that they don’t exist for the home gardener, but I have yet to see GMO seeds available anywhere in pouches for home gardens.

I don’t like GMO, and I do like hybrid and heirloom. But what’s the difference between hybrid and heirloom?

In simplest terms, hybrid plants are generally more resilient and forgiving. Heirlooms are generally more flavorful, and you can harvest the seeds to plant the following year. These are generalizations. Some hybrid plants have stabilized and produce viable seeds for the following year. Not all heirlooms are more flavorful than their hybrid alternative.

Again, I suggest having both hybrid and heirloom and planting some of both, so that if everything goes well and your heirlooms survive the growing season, you get the benefits of heirloom produce. But if things don’t go so well, the hybrid seeds may be more resilient to whatever knocked out your heirlooms and give you a partial harvest.

But that kind of misses the fundamental issue with storing seeds for survival.

In short, you should store seeds that you have experience growing successfully. If you don’t have experience growing seeds successfully, then there are other questions that need to be answered before worrying about which seeds to buy.

You’ve got to remember that, while there is a lot of crossover, “survival” skills are different than “primitive-living” skills.
Here’s what I mean.

Survival skills are designed to help you “survive” a fixed situation of known or unknown length. Food storage is a good example of this. So is traditional camping.

Primitive-living skills are designed to help you be more independent from other people and, in a pure sense, able to survive indefinitely separated from others. Gardening is a good example of this.

Both are valuable skill sets, especially for preppers who are aware of all of the short- and long-term risks we’re currently facing; but it’s helpful not to confuse the two. Primitive living skills, like gardening, also have the advantage of helping you grow your own food during “normal” times.

Back to the issue of storing seeds for survival. Think through the scenarios that you’re planning for. Are you planning for multiple-year primitive-living scenarios or one- to six-month survival scenarios that you can simply stock up supplies for?

I have both survival supplies and primitive-living supplies that I know how to use and work with regularly, but I use modern conveniences for most of my day-to-day living. In a total breakdown situation, I view my survival supplies as a buffer that will buy me time to get my primitive-living skills to the point where I can depend on them for living and/or a barter or trade economy to develop and stabilize.

Again, there will be overlap, but you need to be clear on which one you’re currently preparing for. By focusing on one or another, you will make faster progress overall. I normally suggest that people focus on survival and preparedness before they spend too much time focusing on primitive living.
Why? Because in the event of a disaster like a hurricane, tornado, flood or wildfire, survival and preparedness skills (in general) are much easier to use and benefit from. You don’t necessarily have to transition to primitive-living skills like grinding wheat to bake bread and using a loom to make your own clothes. You can simply eat what’s in your food storage and wear extra clothes that you had in your go bag.

Another question you want to ask yourself is whether you are planning for a partial breakdown in services or a complete breakdown? To clarify, a partial breakdown could be due to a natural disaster or a local terrorist attack after which supply chains are repaired quickly. A complete breakdown could be due to an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), infrastructure attack, earthquakes on the level of the New Madrid Earthquakes or other large-scale incident after which supply chains may be damaged for months or years.

You need to answer these questions to see just how much seeds will fit into the scenarios you’re currently planning for.

As an example, you won’t need seeds for a short-term survival scenario. (You might be amazed how many people have seeds in their 72-hour kits.) And if a long-term survival scenario starts right before your planting season, it’s likely you will have other concerns more pressing than tilling, planting, watering and weeding. It may be a year before you get a chance to plant your seeds. This is one reason why it’s important for everyone to have food storage — even if you’re a master gardener.

You also have to consider environmental issues. If you’re contending with acid rain, excessively polluted rain or a water shortage, a greenhouse may not only be a convenience, but a necessity to allow you to protect your plants from unfiltered water they might get in an open garden.

If you’re planning for an attack on the cyber and/or electrical infrastructure, it means municipal water will probably be hard to find. You should look for seeds that will grow naturally with the soil and water you will have available.

A great first step is to talk with local gardening stores to find out which plants and varieties of plants will work best with your soil type and start with those. If you live in an area where Indians lived, you may want to consider finding out what they planted and ate. In many cases, Indians simply took plants that grew naturally in their areas, harvested seeds and nurtured them in subsequent seasons to increase their yield.

As a note, for the first few years of gardening, I suggest either buying young plants from a nursery and replanting them or doing a combination of planting seeds and replanting plants. Why? There’s a lot to learn with a garden. The more variables you remove and the more early success you have, the more likely you are to continue your garden for years to come.

Keep in mind that if you want to start developing your skill at gardening, it’s not too late to start this weekend. You can still buy tomatoes, berries, herbs and salad fixings at local nurseries. If you can find them, they will probably already have fruit on them and be more expensive than early season plants, but they will give you a chance to practice the mysterious arts of watering, weeding and soil management.

One other thought… if you’re just starting out in your preparations, don’t have gardening experience and have a few hundred bucks available, go out and buy a few hundred dollars’ worth of nonperishable food and a couple tomato or strawberry plants to practice on.

This will let you dip your toes into gardening and also give you a good food supply in case you experience a survival situation between now and when you have developed the skills to grow your own food.

No matter where you are with gardening, keep taking small steps to improve your skills, knowledge and gardening area. This is a skill-set that will allow you to keep learning and improving for your entire life. Once you get soil gardening figured out, you can progress to hydroponics/aeroponics, controlling light cycles and changing up nutrient mixes to get five to 20 times more produce from the same amount of space.

What are your thoughts? How does gardening fit into your preparedness plan? How about hydroponics and aeroponics? And hybrids vs. heirlooms… which do you plant? Would that change in a survival situation? Let me know by commenting below.

http://www.personalliberty.com/survi...eeds-to-store/

Senators Introduce Legislation To Remove Tax Burden On Gold And Silver Coins

July 11, 2011 by Marcy Bonebright

DEMINT.SENATE.GOV

Republican Senators Jim DeMint (pictured), Mike Lee and Rand Paul recently introduced the Sound Money Promotion Act, which would allow legal tender gold and silver coins to be considered in the same manner as United States currency for taxation purposes.

On June 28, Senators Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced the Sound Money Promotion Act, which would allow legal tender gold and silver coins to be considered in the same manner as United States currency for taxation purposes. Thirteen states have recognized gold and silver coins as legal tender, but currently those coins are taxed as if they were not part of U.S. currency.

“Thanks to the government’s reckless over-spending, continued bailouts, and the Federal Reserve’s easy money policy, this year the purchasing power of the dollar hit an all-time low in the several decades since we went off the gold standard,” DeMint said when introducing the bill to the Senate, according to a press release. “This legislation would encourage wider adoption of sound money measures, and that’s a step in the right direction.”

The State of Utah was the first to recognize gold and silver coins as legal tender; the legislation passed in May of this year. Since then, 12 other States have recognized the hard currency, including South Carolina.

“Good monetary policy is an important part of a healthy and prosperous economy,” Lee reportedly said. “Since the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, the dollar has lost approximately 98 percent of its value. This bill is an important step towards a stable and sound currency whose value is protected from the Fed’s printing press.”

http://www.personalliberty.com/news/...r-coins-27887/

Mother Faces 93 Days In Jail For Vegetable Garden!

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3keUTEwev-o&NR=1



Jul 8, 2011

Mother Faces 93 Days In Jail For Vegetable Garden!

'I think it's sad that the City of Oak Park that's already strapped for cash is paying a lot of money to have a prosecutor bothering us.'

Oak Park City Planner Kevin Rulkowski said: 'That's not what we want to see in a front yard.'

'If you look at the definition of what suitable is in Webster's dictionary, it will say common.

'So, if you look around and you look in any other community, what's common to a front yard is a nice, grass yard with beautiful trees and bushes and flowers.'

When asked by Myfoxdetroit.com if the whole saga was a little ridiculous, Mr Rulkowski replied: 'I would argue that you won't find that opinion from most people in Oak Park.'